What is a Good Life
host: Mark McCartney
creativity and exploration, personal growth and choices, importance of questioning assumptions, altruism and rationality in giving
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Transcript:
Mark
Derek, thank you so much for joining me today on the What Is a Good Life podcast. And given the life that you’ve lived and the various things that has encompassed. I’ve been very excited to have this conversation with you today around this, this theme.
Derek Sivers
Thanks, Mark. I love the subject, so I’m excited to talk with you too.
Mark
Well, as I tend to kick these things off with Derek, it is with the question of is there a question you’re trying to answer as you move through life?
Derek Sivers
Yes. And I love that starting question. I thought about it a bit before we hit record, and my whole life I’ve been fascinated with the question, “What’s another way to see this?” And I’ll give a starting example. When I was a teenager, I was a full time musician. I actually attended music school instead of regular school. I went to a music college called Berklee College of Music in Boston. So I was 100% into making music and nothing else. And one day I saw this poster that was an advertisement for a synthesizer, and it said something like, “There’s more than one way to play it.” And it had 20 little circles, each one done in a radically different style. So one might look like a paint splotch, and the other one looked like a ball of hot metal, and the other one looked like a countryside scenery with little leaves painted around the edge. And there were 20 of them like this. And I looked at that poster like, “Whoa, this is so inspiring.” That’s because every note you play on your guitar or your piano or whatever, you don’t just go ding and play the note. You could play it like that, or you could play it like that. And I would just look at this so inspired, like, “How would I play a chord that sounds like that hot metal ball being dropped into water? Or how can I play a chord that would sound like that leafy countryside.” And I just loved thinking about my music in a different way, or being reminded of the different possibilities of the ways that I could play any given note or chord or write a song.
Derek Sivers
And so I find that this is still a theme in my life that in any given situation, say, when I was running my little business for ten years, at any point I’d think, “Okay, well, here’s a business situation I’m in. How am I going to handle this?” And of course, there’s the default way that we say, “Well, it seems obvious that we should do... “ And I’d say, “Well, okay. Or what’s another way to think about this. You know, we could do this. All right. What’s another way to think about this?” And then I’d come to more unusual ideas like, “Oh, wait a second, maybe we actually give away this thing because it’s such a small transaction that giving it away for free will have no friction at all, and then bring a whole bunch of other people in to do our real core offering instead of trying to sell this thing for a dollar. Let’s make this free because it’ll build more relationships that we can turn into.” And ideas like that, the more creative, interesting ideas usually wouldn’t come until the fourth or the fifth or the 10th idea after the first one, you know. And I think it all went back to this mindset of that poster. And so it was in this mindset that I wrote my last book called “How to Live”, which was 27 radically different and conflicting ways you could approach life with the same idea of like, don’t just stop at the first obvious one. There are other ways that you could do this.
Mark
Can you still see that poster or that picture that vividly like did you have a sense at the time that this was quite a seminal moment, or may have a kind of a seminal influence on you?
Derek Sivers
I don’t think teenagers ever think the word seminal, but--.
Mark
I only learned it a couple of years ago.
Derek Sivers
I don’t think I’d ever said it out loud. No, but it was a big well. It was one of those moments that-- you know, what’s funny, I’ve moved like ten times since then, right. I don’t know where that poster is anymore. I obviously didn’t bring it with me. And I even went and tried to search the internet. And it was from a company called Roland. I contacted Roland to try to find it. No. So it’s just lost into history. But when I moved here to Wellington, New Zealand, there is a big giant parking garage building smack in the middle of the centre of the city where somebody has done the same thing with paintings of sharks. There are like, I don’t know, say like 50, maybe 80 paintings of sharks on the side of this building. And every one is different. One shark is like punk with a little mohawk, and the other one is just like 1950s rocker with his hair slicked back and and glasses. And then the other one is looks like a Picasso. And the other one is a big paint splotch.
Derek Sivers
And I looked at that going right on somebody still taking this approach to things. But yeah, even without that poster, I just find it an interesting way to go through life too, to not stop at the first conclusion. So much so that I’d say the definition of being stupid is to stop thinking, right? If somebody’s being stupid, it means they’re not thinking. And if they’re not thinking, it’s usually because they’ve stopped at the first conclusion that they had one little idea or one conclusion that just seemed obvious. And then they just stopped there. They didn’t think any further. And you hear it, for example, well, let’s say racism, when somebody says, “Oh, well, you know how those people are. Those people are just lazy.” And it’s like they think no further than that. They’re like, “Yep, case closed, matter’s solved. Those people are just lazy.” That’s being stupid because it’s not continuing to think that that might not be the answer. And so the opposite of being stupid, then, is to keep thinking and considering other ways to look at this.
Mark
I know you’re saying that where this first notion was kind of observed or with this poster, but did this feel like quite a natural process? And to just how your mind works? Or did this become more like a craft or a dedication?
Derek Sivers
About a year after that poster, I was in a traveling circus. I was the ringleader MC of a circus, and my boss was hot. It was actually the owner’s wife was my boss and she was not just gorgeous, but like so sweet. And we just spent hundreds, maybe thousands of hours together touring the country with the circus. And she was so sweet. And I don’t know if I had a crush on her, but, you know, she was, like, a really important person to me. And after a couple years of knowing her, she said, “There’s this book you should read. I really want you to read this book. I really think you’re going to like it.” So I said all that to just say, this is a big recommendation. This isn’t somebody casually. This isn’t just anybody saying you should read this book.
Derek Sivers
This is her saying yeah, you need to read this book. So that book was Tony Robbins “Awaken the Giant Within”. And one of his core ideas in that book is about reframing to say that, let’s say something bad happens to you. You get fired from your job. Most people’s first reaction is to say, “This sucks. This is terrible. This is awful.” And he says, “Whenever something bad happens, ask yourself, what’s great about this?” And he said, “Your first impulse will be to say nothing. Nothing’s great about this, but keep asking. And eventually you can start to think of other things that could be great about this. That you could turn this into something great. You can find a benefit in any situation.” And so I find those two ideas related. So musically, the colored circles. Life wise this idea of just asking yourself like, “Okay, well, what’s another way to think about what’s happened?” And then it relates to business. I’m not really into business anymore, but I find it still fascinating that business is just as creative as music or anything else, because there’s not just one answer to how to do anything in business. It’s completely up to you, especially if it’s your business. You can just make all the laws of the universe in your little tiny world there called your business. You can do things any way you want, and it becomes a creative challenge to you, to how you want to do it.
Mark
When you think of that sense of, okay, even the example there of like a you lose your job. In that process where you know, someone will have an emotional reaction. So with the way you’re talking about this is that’s kind of built into the experience, maybe you might react emotionally to this. Do the questions, then help navigate those responses or?
Derek Sivers
Yeah.
Mark
Right.
Derek Sivers
My newest book called “Useful Not True” is about that, that there’s a gap between when something happens and your response to it. And where we get in trouble. A lot of people sitting in jail right now are because they reacted right away. They had a quick emotional response to something, and they acted on that impulse right away. Got into a big fight, hurt somebody, crashed their car, whatever it is, and there they are in jail. But you can take a second in between when something happens. You can feel your first emotional reaction, But not declare it to yourself as the only possibility. Meaning like as soon as somebody, let’s say, insults you outside of a bar after your third drink. It’s not the only option that you need to avenge and defend your honor. Okay, well, that’s one option. You know, another option is you can take just a second and think of some other ways to look at this. And it goes with any anything in life is that we always have our first emotional reaction. And you have to let it go a little bit. Like if you’ve ever tried meditation, it’s kind of meditation 101 is to say some things are going to come into your head. Don’t dwell on them. Just let them pass right back out again. And it’s like that. Just because you had an emotional reaction to something doesn’t mean that message the emotion is telling you is not necessarily true. It’s just one way of looking at things and it might not be useful, you know? Hence the name of my book, “Useful Not True” is choosing beliefs that are useful or choosing beliefs because they’re useful to you, not because they’re necessarily true. So you have to choose which way of looking at this is going to work for you.
Mark
And from your perspective then Derek, like when you’re going through the options, is this a kind of cognitive fit or like an alignment of something that you kind of, that you may decide something? Is it just even the resonance of whatever has come up. Or is it the logic behind it, like what kind of contributes then to even going down the list and settling settling on one.
Derek Sivers
I don’t have any guiding words on that except that it’s just unique to everybody in your situation. Because sometimes you just might be in a situation where the right thing to do is the proper and honorable thing to do. And there might be another time where the right thing to do is just the stupidest, craziest thing that you just feel like doing to blow off steam or just for a sense of variety, because it’s the opposite of what you would usually do. There’s no right answer. It’s just up to you in the moment of knowing for yourself, or choosing you make the choice. There’s no outside person that’s going to tell you what’s the right choice. Well, sorry, there are lots of outside people that tell you what is the right choice, but ultimately you just have to know for yourself in that situation.
Mark
It’s just when you mentioned earlier the circus, running your company, musician or writing books, like living in New Zealand. Were you always really attracted to a sense of like variety? Was there a sense of freedom in how you experienced life that that kind of allowed you to explore to the extent that you seem to do?
Derek Sivers
My life choices have been related to that first question you asked, or my answer to the first question you asked about what’s another way to look at this? It’s same thing with life choices to me. Some of my heroes were musicians at first, and if you look at some of the great musicians, a lot of them follow this path of ongoing artistic exploration, like Picasso did, too. You look at early Picasso paintings, he was just good at realism, and at a certain point he wanted to go beyond that and try a different style and he kept trying different styles. Miles Davis, if you look at his musical career, he excelled at this original jazz style of bebop or let’s say original, because it was the first thing he got famous for. It wasn’t the first thing he tried, but he got really into bebop and then kind of transitioned into cool jazz and then into this like rock, jazz fusion, and then even tried playing pop. Playing with Cyndi Lauper “Time After Time” and at each musical transition, fans of his previous style might get mad or disappointed that he stopped playing that style that they love, and went on to this new style that they might not love as much. But some of them came with him. But for him it was more of like a need to keep growing and exploring.
Derek Sivers
Same thing with Bob Dylan. Same thing with, I don’t know, Paul Simon. Same thing with Madonna. Same thing with Lady Gaga. I don’t know. Like many musicians, keep pushing themselves to let go of what they are known for and try something new. So maybe because a lot of my role models are musicians, I just saw that as a given. Like, that’s what we do in life is you keep exploring. You don’t just get stuck on one thing. So each transition I made was a little difficult. You know for 15 years, I was head down and focused on one thing, which was to be a successful musician. And then at 29 years old, a little hobby I did while I was selling my CD on my band’s website, I started helping a few musician friends that asked if I could help sell their CD two. I was like, “Yeah, okay.” It was just a quick side favor I was doing for some friends. But then that grew and grew and grew. And then strangers were calling, saying, “Hey, can you sell my CD?” And I had this painful transition of saying, “Wow, if I do this, that means I’m no longer a musician.” Like, it looks like I’m accidentally starting a business here, actually, reluctantly starting a business.
Derek Sivers
But it seemed like the world was asking me to do that, so it seemed obvious, like, all right, people are begging me to do this. People are opening up their wallets and paying me to do this. Whereas I’ve been a full time musician for 15 years, I think I should take the new opportunity. And then ten years later, when I was sick of running the business, it was a painful decision to decide to stop and to leave. And it was a little scary to leave this thing that was a huge success for me. Made millions of dollars and had 85 employees, and I had to leave that behind and walk away into I don’t know what. I didn’t know what was next. I just knew that it was time in the name of growth to stop doing this. And then, yeah, same thing with where I live. Ideally, if it was only up to me right now, I’d probably be living in India or China. But I had a baby with somebody that does not want to live there. So here I am in New Zealand, which is, you know, fair compromise. And so on, I plan to keep doing this, keep pushing myself into expanding my comfort zone, expanding what’s in my realm of self-identity.
Mark
Can you give me a sense of the difference in the quality of like letting go of the idea of being a musician when you had something that the world was already asking you to do, almost, versus then leaving the company or selling the company, then without knowing what was coming up in the meantime, like, was there was there a difference in those?
Derek Sivers
Oh, very. You could say they were almost opposite. Where starting the company felt like--. Let’s just say metaphorically I was rolling a boulder uphill with my own music. I was pushing so hard to do this thing that was so difficult, which was constantly trying to unlock locked doors with my music. And it’s just rejection after rejection, you know, to be an independent musician and trying to make a living out of it. It just involves a lot of rejection. You feel it’s somewhat selfish that you keep pushing your music like, you know, “Here’s my music, my thoughts.” Shouting your private feelings into a public address system on a stage. Me me me me me. And then this little whimsical hobby I started suddenly, just every time I checked my email, it was just like people asking if they could please sign up and, “How much can I pay you? And thank you so much for doing this. Oh my God, this is the greatest thing.” And so that just felt like. Okay, I think it’s obvious what I should be doing. Time had something to do with it. Meaning I had been pushing that boulder uphill for 15 years of my own music, and I had been enjoying it, but I had just recently started plateauing. I was like, on the road doing the same gigs at the same places, not having a lot of personal growth, having a little personal growth, writing some new music and doing some new songs, but still generally getting in the van, driving six hours to get on a stage, set up the equipment, do a show just like I had been doing for the last five years with no big advancement.
Derek Sivers
And then when this business came along, it seemed like that’s the growth choice. Actually. You know what, Mark? Well. Sorry. Okay, I’ll finish answering this question, but I just found a theme that you might like. Then to finish answering this question. Then ten years later, everybody still wanted me to be the CD Baby guy. Everybody still wanted me to run this business, but I was just personally feeling done, like, I can’t do this anymore. I’ve been doing this for ten years. I’m just feeling so done emotionally. I’m showing up to work, but I’m not into it. I gotta make a change. And so that’s why I say it felt like the opposite decision. Where now I am leaving ten years of service behind to leave and go be selfish again. In this case, I didn’t know what the selfish action was going to be after leaving the company, but I knew that I needed to just kind of focus on my own personal exploration because this path was feeling done, or to put it more artistically, it felt like I had been painting a mural or writing a novel for ten years, and that mural or that story was now done. Like, I felt like everything I set out to do. I have done, I have nothing more to add. That’s it, you know?
Mark
But did you say you were going to bring up a theme or?
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Yeah. I was waiting for a little mark transition there. Thank you.
Mark
Okay.
Derek Sivers
It was going all the way back to a question you asked a bit ago about, like, how do you make life choices around this or why. Abraham Maslow, the guy that’s famous for the pyramid of self-actualization, with the very bottom layers being food and shelter and the middle layers being connection with other people and the very peak top layer being this he calls self-actualization. This idea of being your absolute, flourishing, thriving self, being all you can be, the fullest expression of your time on Earth. Abraham Maslow, along with his pyramid of self-actualization, had a beautiful little quote that I wrote down in high school. I think I was like 15 years old, and I heard this in a psychology class. I went, whoa, I love this. And it said something like, “Every day a hundred times you’re presented with the choice between safety and risk.” And he said, “Make the growth choice a hundred times a day.” And I went, “Whoa. I love that.” And so maybe ever since I was 15 or so, I’ve kept that compass in my head at every daily little decision. What’s the growth choice? And it’s usually, what’s the thing I haven’t tried yet? Or what’s the scary thing? Whatever scares you, go do that.
Mark
This sense then when you had left, when you said okay, you’d you’d written the novel, you’d painted the mural. And there was this, it seemed almost like a something in you would wanted to move towards this sense of growth and, you know, more so focused on growth. Again, you say the kind of selfish focus. Really curious just the sense of that, the intertwining almost of the word selfish with that as well. Like, was this kind of something just to focus on me? Like you were going to just take time for yourself, space for yourself? How would you characterize that?
Derek Sivers
I didn’t know what it was going to be. I just knew I had to stop doing this now. You know, it’s a little bit like a relationship breakup. If you’ve ever been the one to instigate a breakup in a romantic relationship when there’s nobody else, there’s no body else you want to be with, you just know that, like, I can’t do this anymore. I don’t like this anymore. This hurts. And even though it’s a painful decision, you know it’s the right decision. It’s like that.
Mark
And for your sense, then just even the growth choice and continuously like is this quite conscious for you? Have you conditioned this to the point that it’s just almost an autopilot part of it, or do you find yourself not fighting or friction. But is it that blatantly kind of clear to you that this is what works for you?
Derek Sivers
I think it’s still a very conscious choice in that moment. Like I said earlier, of not going to jail for following your impulse. Whenever I’m thinking of what to do, this value system is always in there of considering many options, pushing myself past the first few obvious ones. Continuing to think about it. And at some point when I think of the many different options I could do, something feels like the growth choice, the whatever scares you, go do it choice. The one that would bring a bigger sense of exploration and self expansion. And so I try to make that choice instead of the safe choice.
Mark
It sounds, just even like with the liveliness of how you say it as well, it almost sounds like there’s a lot of play within you or there’s an enjoyment in this. There’s this life is clearly based on the life you’ve lived. But just even, just this life is full of possibilities. Like there’s a almost a trust in the growth or the expansion.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, even let’s go back half a sentence before the word trust. Maybe, but that might be overthinking it. Think about kids on a playground. A kid sees a playground and sees that zip line with the handlebar and the wire going across, and they go like, “Ooh, I want to try that.” And a kid sees a long curly slide and says, “Ooh, I want to try that. Or a kid goes over to a friend’s house, the friend’s playing a video game that he’s never seen and hands him the controller, like, “Here come play.” And it’s like, here’s a game you haven’t played yet. Oh, I want to try this. Life can be as simple as that. It’s like the first time I was at a party in my 20s and met some girl from China who told me something about the Chinese language with the tones, and I said, “What do you mean, the tones?” And she said, “Well, the tone changes the meaning.” I said, “What do you mean the tone changes the meaning?” And she explained how any given syllable in Chinese that depending if you make it a muh, muh, muh muh that those are four different words.
Derek Sivers
And I went, “Whoa, Holy crap. Wait a second. What? Then how do you sing? Oh my God.” And so ever since then, I’ve had this sense of a kid seeing a zip line on a playground. Like, I want to try this, I want to play that. I want to try speaking in this language and see what that’s like. Computer programming, you know? I know other people do it, it sounds like a big, nerdy, brainy, sophisticated, geniusy thing to do to program computers. I want to try that. Can I do that? Could I actually be the smart guy for once? And so just kind of actually out of necessity, because I accidentally started this website and people were asking me to do it, I had to learn how to program computers. But of course, it was with a sense of like, “Oh, maybe I could be that. Maybe I could try that.” So I think it’s mostly just this fun sense of exploration and self expansion.
Mark
Was that with you for like most of your life or were there influences that you can think of that helped develop this or how would you kind of consider that
Derek Sivers
Well, if you’re laying me on the shrink’s couch now, let me think. It feels like everything started about the time, like when I started playing music, like, as a teenager. I didn’t just, you know, start playing music. It was this big omfg, I want to be a musician. Like, I want to be a successful musician. Or at least I want to be a great musician. And I just started devouring everything I could learn, every instruction, every interview with the great musicians, reading it all, trying to glean tips and at the same time, then even reading self-help books like that Tony Robbins book I said. It was because I felt like, well, this might give me some more strategy or insight into how to be a successful musician, because I know it’s like being an Olympic athlete. It’s something that everybody wants, and only one out of a million gets it. And I want to be that one out of a million. So I need every advantage I can get. I want to learn every savvy bit of life wisdom I can get. But even that, sorry to answer your question, that was still kind of monomaniacally laser focused on one single goal for 15 years of just being a musician. And I think that it’s more been since then that I’ve been, actually more like since selling CD Baby. Because then I went straight from one 15 year long single goal to another 10 year long single goal of running CD Baby. And then it’s after that, that I’ve more lifted my head up and felt like, all right. I spent the first 40 years of my life in America, time to get out. And I’ve spent the first whatever or the last 25 years doing just two things. Time to try other things. So I think maybe more of this exploration has come very deliberately as a way of shaking shit up.
Mark
Is there something in the time then since like, you know, you’re having this laser focus or two very continued back to back focuses for, you know, 25 years. Has there been something about yourself through the last and kind of installment you know, when you say there is kind of lifting your head up from this. Has there been things that you’ve found out about yourself that have surprised you or like that kind of took you in a completely different direction, or even in a sense of perceiving the world?
Derek Sivers
Yes. I mean, honestly, I could just sit here and tell you a bunch of little tales now, but really, the real answer is just yes. That continuing to make choices this way and continuing to do what scares me, and to choose the thing that feels like the most uncomfortable choice to do that again and again means I keep surprising myself. Things I hated two years ago, I now love and that’s, to me, one of the greatest joys in life. To take what was unknown and alien and make it known and homey, to take what you actually actively disliked previously and now find something to love about it. Maybe you love everything about it now. Realizing that you were wrong before to dislike it. These are just the greatest joys in life, I’d say. Like, maybe the two biggest joys in my life have been my son, and our great relationship. And this thing that we’re talking about right here. Like it is so emotionally and intellectually fulfilling to steer into your prejudices, to go towards things that you feel aversion towards and go into it and try to find something to love about something you don’t, and then to start loving it, to find something interesting in what seems boring and get interested in it. To go to a place that you think you would hate and make friends there and feel a connection and appreciation for a place that you previously had no appreciation for. It’s so fulfilling. This is how I want to keep living.
Mark
And just when you were saying that, it makes me think of, I spent a year in Peru before I moved to Berlin, and I was always petrified of dogs. Like just couldn’t stand to be around dogs. And then a relationship with my next door neighbor’s dog there just shifted everything like to the point that for the last nine months that I was there, we were inseparable. And I ended up wandering around the town feeding stray dogs or, you know, my wife was laughing that I was using her as a shield at the start of the trip. And then I was wandering around with the pack of dogs at the end of it. And just what you said there though. But that for me is very clear example of just this like a huge love being on the other side of what I initially said, I was petrified of, I feared. And so just the more you speak, I can only kind of imagine just a life kind of dedicated towards this, the kind of deliciousness of the surprise there. And you know, I’m a father as well. So you know, obviously you mentioned your son there, but just even the things you could discover like I think and even just with what you were saying earlier about not not falling on the first response, you know, like or continuously seeing things are open. I can only imagine a life dedicated to that, the kind of, I don’t know, the possibilities that would exist, but also the moments of, just deep, deep satisfaction.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Well put. And hey, I think you are kind of living that life a bit by doing this podcast. You’re putting yourself out there. You’re not just watching TV at night, you’re putting yourself out there and meeting people and asking these deep, deep questions and getting involved with these conversations. So I think you are doing it. But God, that dog example in Peru is so wonderful, I love that.
Mark
Yeah, it is remarkable though, just even what you’re reflecting on continuously in life. But is this in any way kind of motivation for the writing in ways like to kind of--
Mark
Just to open people’s eyes up to what you’re seeing then essentially.
Derek Sivers
Oh yeah.
Derek Sivers
Oh, sorry. I should have let you finish that sentence. I do it first for myself. I write privately a lot way more than I write publicly. I write privately in my journal in this sense of, you know, what’s another way to look at this? And then when I find an interesting perspective, I go, “Ooh, I’ve never heard anybody mention that one before. That’s interesting.” Then I’ll share that with the world. My like my last book called “How to Live”. I had never seen anybody write a book in that format exactly. I’d seen somebody write a little fiction book in that format where every chapter disagrees with every other chapter. But I’d never seen somebody write a nonfiction book disagreeing with themselves. It kind of walks the line between fiction and nonfiction. If if you say, “Yep, here’s how to live, this is the way you should do it.” And in the very next chapter you say, “Nope, the opposite is the way to live.” Then what the hell? What’s going on here? I love the unseriousness of that. I’d never seen somebody do that before, but, hey, that’s coming back to music or art that a musician, ideally tries to write a song that nobody’s written before, to say something that’s never been said, and an artist tries to create something artistically that moves you in a way that nobody’s done before. Nobody’s ever kind of combined these images in that way before. So yeah, I guess it is, my writing is trying to share what hasn’t been said before or maybe hasn’t been considered.
Mark
What was that experience like of contradicting yourself? Not contradicting, but even just challenging what the previous chapter had suggested. Was there a flow within that or did you feel different in each chapter?
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Well, first you got to understand it was like four years of full time work to make that little book. And the rough draft was 1300 pages. And then I compressed it down to 112 pages. So at first I was basically taking everything I’d ever learned in life, dumping it all into one big giant document, then going through and categorizing like, well, all of these thoughts are around like, go get rich. And all of these thoughts are categorized into like, do nothing, it doesn’t matter anyway. And all of these thoughts are like, go fill your senses. It’s just hedonism. There is no past or present. There is only now just. And so I started categorizing them and then separating them. And the idea was always to make them contradict each other. So then as I got down to the final rounds of editing, to answer your question, it messed with my head where on one day I would be editing the chapter or deep into the chapter, or kind of honing this chapter about how the most important thing in life is to just follow the ancient wisdom. Just do what’s been proven over the centuries. Just follow the guidelines. Your own whims don’t matter. Do the right thing according to tried and true proven ways.
Derek Sivers
And then the very next day, I’d be on to the new chapter that would be saying the opposite. You know, go fuck shit up, go make a mess, destroy it all. And every day as I was working on each chapter, I thought, “Well, yeah, this is it. This is the way to live. I know I’ve got these other chapters, but come on, this is the one. This is really the way to live.” But then, of course, the next day I’d be working on another chapter and I’d think, “Actually, you know what? No, this is it. The truth is, nothing matters. Just let it all pass. Do nothing. Sit and do nothing. This is truly the right way to be.” So yeah, I messed with my own head while writing it, which is great because I felt that was the effect that I wanted to give to the reader too. I really wanted every chapter to be persuasive so that while you were reading that chapter, even though, like I said, that each chapter is only 5 or 6 pages, the whole book is only 112 pages. While reading that chapter, you were ideally persuaded into feeling like this is how to live.
Mark
But what a glorious kind of exercise and kind of attachment. And then letting go, attachment and then letting go and and almost like having a favorite for a particular time and then letting go or being persuaded by other arguments to not let you just be completely rooted in one perspective or one fixed outlook.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Well put. Thank you. And you get how that ties back to all the stuff we’ve been talking about, about the colored circles and the different ways of looking at anything.
Mark
The process then though of like when you go to share something like that like is there greater satisfaction? I know you said you do it for yourself initially, like you’ve got your writing, you know, you’ve over a thousand pages at the start. It’s four years worth of writing. You’re always journaling, is the satisfaction first and foremost for yourself and just even distilling these things, is it the sense of just even the artist in you with connecting with the audience? Like, what’s the kind of the big hook that kind of brings you back to it?
Derek Sivers
I think if you ask any musician or artist the first impulse or the driving, let’s say see the primary force, is this feeling of just I want this to exist. This needs to exist. Like I have an idea for a song. This song needs to exist. I want to make this thing happen. I have an idea that I want to see it realized. Turning it from some vague fog in my head into a concrete thing in my hands. So I think that’s the main drive that four years I spent writing “How to Live”. I was really driven by-- I don’t have one in the recording booth with me. I was going to hopefully pick one up and just say, like I wanted this book to exist. I had this idea of this tiny, succinct little book where every chapter disagrees with the rest. I was like, “Oh, it’s going to be a lot of work, but I need to make this happen.” So yeah, I think that was the first drive of that, yeah, that was the primary force. Just journaling privately is easy, and I do it sometimes hours a day, at least 30 minutes a day. Usually more like an hour. Or if I’m going through a lot of stuff and making a lot of big life decisions, and it can be like three hours a day, I’ll just spend just all my thoughts going straight into the keys, into private text files that I just keep to organize my own thoughts and nobody’s ever going to see those. Those are just for me.
Mark
Yeah, I think that’s one of my-- what could be a recurring nightmare for me is that someone got their hands on my journal.
Derek Sivers
Yes. Yeah.
Mark
One thing just on “How to Live” that I just thought was absolutely glorious. And even your response to it, you kind of gave the sense of, with some of your musician friends or artists that after they’ve written a song, they think it could be the greatest song that was ever written. I love the sense. I think it was in one of your there was a short article or one of the on your newsletter, just a short note of just why you this felt like the best book that was ever written after you, after you completed it. I just love that. Like the sense of sheer kind of celebration of one’s own work and obviously a serious undertaking of work from what you’re describing here as well. What was that like? Was that a rush? Were awash with an experience or an emotion or a satisfaction? Because I don’t know. I don’t often like when there’s a kind of a self mock, like a disingenuous self-deprecation, if you know what I mean. So to see someone fully stand on something and celebrate something. I thought that was glorious.
Derek Sivers
Thank you. It felt, yeah. Wait. Hold on. Just in case. We should explain to the audience quickly anybody listening to this that yeah for years I had felt whenever I would like write a song and if I did it right the way I liked it, if I was proud of it and I recorded it, well, I went, “God, I just love this song. I feel like I could just play this song forever, just blow up my eardrums with this song. Oh my God, I love this song so much.” But I feel like it’s not cool to say that you’re not supposed to say that you love your song so much. And then especially a book. It was really weird that when I asked a bunch of musicians I know. “When you finish writing a song, do you feel it’s the greatest song ever written?” Every musician I asked said yes, but then I asked a bunch of authors I know, “When you write a book, do you ever feel it’s the greatest book ever written?” Every single author said no, and I still don’t really understand why that is. Because, of course, if I’m crafting this book forever and forever and forever. Okay, well, I say forever. You know what I mean. For months and months and months, I’m making this book of course, every little choice I’m making, I’m making it the way I want it to be. So ideally, when it’s done, it’s like.
Derek Sivers
“Ah, I did it. I made it the way I wanted it to be.” But then how weird that at least in most cultures of the world, especially the, let’s say the European, especially the English, you’re supposed to be, “Oh, you know, oh, it’s nothing. You know, it’s just little bits, you know? I just had to do it.” What is that, that you’re supposed to be so self-effacing. And then doesn’t that deny all your work? Like, if you’re being honest in that moment. “Oh, it’s just it’s nothing.” Well, then what the fuck were you doing for four years? If it’s nothing.
Derek Sivers
It’s fucking wasted your time. Really? You think that’s nothing? So I felt like I love this book so much. Like really it feels like if I did nothing else with my life but write this one book, that would have been a life well lived, you know? I made this book and I died. That’s a good life. I left this very unique book with the world. That’s a great feeling. But then I feel like I’m not even supposed to say that to a dear friend. So then I challenged myself to say that publicly. So, you know, anybody listening to this, that’s what Mark’s talking about, is I put out an article saying the headline was “The greatest book ever written”. And I said this, “I think the greatest book ever written is How to Live by me. And that sounds crazy to say, but I’ve thought about this for a few years, and this is how I honestly feel, and I know that you probably think that a different book is the greatest book ever written, but I think it’s this one.”
Mark
Yeah, I know you you singled out the English or the British there, but the Irish are, are every bit as good in that self-effacing stuff as well. And I don’t know, like I think it takes, in order for us to see the kind of the magnitude or the possibilities of this life or to see the wonder in it, it seems a little odd that we can either look at nature or something and see the wonder in that, but then maybe, perhaps not see the wonder in ourselves. And so I think when anyone just fully celebrates their own and when it’s truly felt like, you know, the self-deprecating stuff sounds as off as the overinflated ego when that’s not really what they mean either. Do you know what? But when it’s a truly felt experience, I don’t even think there’s like-- it’s not even an arrogance or something. It’s just knowing where I stand right now and kind of feeling comfortable in where I stand.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Years ago, I’m going to make a weird little pop reference right now. Around the late 80s, early 90s, there was a musician named Terence Trent D’Arby that his hit song was called “Wishing Well” and “Sign My Name”. But anyway, he released an album. Well, his debut album was called, I think it was called “The World According to Terence Trent D’Arby”. And I remember that in his, like, media interviews after the album came out, you know, rolling Stone and whatnot, he said quite a few times, “This is the greatest album since The Beatles, Sergeant Peppers.” And people went poof, “What an asshole.” And I was remembering him years later after finishing “How to Live”, because I was honestly and privately thinking, “Oh my God, this is the best book anybody’s ever written.” I was thinking, “Wow, you know, at the time, 40 years ago, I thought Terence Trent D’Arby was just saying that for media attention. And maybe he was, but maybe he was feeling this. Maybe he was feeling, ‘Oh my God, I just made the best album ever made.’” That would be interesting.
Mark
Just because I just think this is such a lovely experience. Just to dwell on for a moment, when you had kind of painstakingly whittled this down or edited this down to to what you were happy, like, you know, this moment of completion in that like, what was it like when it was completely kind of signed off on from from your behalf. Like was there you know, you mentioned earlier Maslow’s hierarchy and self-actualization being an aspect of something like what was the felt experience of completing it?
Derek Sivers
I find it interesting that in English at least, we say,” I released a new album, I released a new book. The new movie release is coming out this Friday.” Release has a double meaning right or it’s interesting that we choose that word that means generally to let go. And it’s very appropriate because until that moment, you’re tweaking and improving and tweaking and adding last little brushstroke and one more note and changing the EQ or whatever it may be. And at a certain point you release it and now you’ve let go, no more changes. It belongs to the world now. So it just feels like a big release. Oh my God there’s a third meaning, the release, like we say, like, “Oh no, that’s relief.” No, but there’s that new agey kind of way of saying it’s such a release of energy that’s like, woo! Like we say relief, but also release. Who knows, maybe that’s a mistake.
Mark
I was there with you. I felt that interpretation too. So, yeah.
Mark
That was the first thing that was coming to my mind when you said the double meaning of release. I didn’t even think of the other one, the middle one you were mentioning, but my mind went straight to just.
Derek Sivers
Cool. Okay.
Derek Sivers
Oh, okay. Ah, yeah. Oh, no. Yeah, at first I meant this kind of, you know, the letting go of a dove that flies away. It’s like there it’s released to now it’s gone. It’s no longer in my hands. That’s usually the first thing that I feel when that moment comes of when you truly call something done. There’s something really handy about sending a book to the printer. Printing a paper book instead of just doing an e-book. Because if it’s an e-book, you can still keep tweaking it every day. Just edit the source file, republish the epub. You could just keep going. But that’s a handy thing about doing paper books, and especially if you like I do. I sent it off to a really nice printer where I get the the hardcover linen outside, and I print 25,000 copies. So once I do that, it’s like, okay, now it’s really done. No more changes and I just have to be okay with it as it is.
Mark
Just given what the the podcast is called, “What is a good life” and just really curious. And the significance of what you do with the proceeds of the books and also even with regards to CD Baby obviously as well. Where is this sense of, you know giving back, paying it forward, whatever, like just contributing to the world to the extent that you do with these endeavors, like, that’s that’s quite unique. You know, usually when you think of people giving something, it’s a percentage. Where does this come from for you, if you know what I mean, that it’s just like release again, I guess.
Derek Sivers
Oh, 100% is also a percentage. It’s like when people say, you know, “It’s a fraction of the amount.” I think, “Well, you know, nine halves is also a fraction.” Anyway. All right. Fractions can be large percentages. Okay, to me it’s just rational. I’m actually not an extremely bleeding heart, altruistic, sappy person. It’s just rational that if you had a cupboard full of, I don’t know, 50 cans of baked beans because you have baked beans every morning and you’ve got a cupboard full of 50, and somebody shows up at the door saying, “Got another 150 cans of baked beans here.” And if your cupboard was full, you’d say, “Can you give them to somebody else? I just don’t need any more baked beans. I’m all set.” It’s really just that I already know that I have enough. There’s nothing stupid I want to buy. I don’t want a mega yacht. So if more money shows up at the door when my needs are already filled, it just feels stupid to take it for myself. It feels like it should just go to people that need it. Like there are people who really need money right now and I’m not one of them, so please don’t give it to me.
Mark
I just think that it’s an amazing perspective. The the sense though, as well of just it being rational. It’s irrefutably kind of rational.
Derek Sivers
Thank you, I agree.
Mark
But it also just kind of makes me reflect on a little bit then just maybe even the craziness of our ideology or our culture sometimes that I’ve never heard someone describe their, like an altruistic act like that as just rational. But I don’t know. I think there’s something really pointed or weighty to what you just said there.
Derek Sivers
Thank you. I try to understand the world. I try to understand different worldviews. I try to understand worldviews that conflict with my own and really try to understand them. This one I still don’t get. I still don’t understand why Jeff Bezos builds the world’s largest mega-yacht, to use that previous example. I don’t understand why somebody who has four houses needs to buy a fifth one. I don’t understand needing 35 five cards. You know, for those people that get way into cars, I just don’t get it. And I actually really would like to get to know one of these people, which may be hard because usually if somebody is that rich, then they are very emotionally guarded too, or they’re used to kind of talking in public platitudes like saying what people want to hear instead of being honest. I’d love to try to get into the honest psyche of somebody making those decisions and try to understand what is it really like? Where is that really coming from? Or is it just like gluttonous, like the fat man continuing to eat four desserts after a fat meal, you know, is it just like, “I just can’t help myself?” Is it just a lack of self-control, Or perhaps is it philosophical? Is there someone that really thoughtfully makes these decisions to take too much? And has a philosophical justification for it, I don’t know. I still don’t get it.
Mark
You know, I had a thought a few years. I used to work in finance, and I left, the trip I mentioned to Peru. I quit a job on the first day with a 40% pay increase and my wife and I just took off to Peru just because, I don’t know, I had a very clear reaction in my body the weekend before where I was just like, “I think I’m going to suffer if I don’t face the uncertainty of stepping or creating space for maybe what could emerge next, I guess.” But one of the thoughts that I had, I think even in the build up to leaving finance, was, “How could I say that I’m for any kind of fairness or equality?” And I know the world isn’t necessarily fair, I’m not being completely naive with an ideology. But I remember googling the net wealth in the world now this I wouldn’t hang my hat on statistics I’m about to give here, because I’m sure it was just a number that I picked off on the first page, dividing it by the population. That said, everyone had $32,000. That would be the net worth of every individual. And I don’t know, there is a strange sense of, if you bring a bit of awareness to the idea that, you know, the baked beans example I think is is a wonderful way of describing it. Like there is a certain amount of baked beans to go around here, if you know what I mean.
Mark
And sorry for just bludgeoning this example, but you know what I mean. Like even just the word you used to bring rational to the perspective on it then I think is really telling because then, you know, malaria tablets are always the example I give. And I know you donate to a charity that focuses on malaria as well. Like when there are actually things that are curable, when we’re not talking about things that are some nefarious cure that we’re trying to develop, that money is being sunk into and there’s no results. Yeah, it is a really curious thing. But, you know, I do get a sense as well though, that we don’t get away with anything in life. And I don’t mean that in a really harsh sense. But when you’re going to sleep at night or when you have quiet or stillness in your life, I think some degree of reflection or awareness of our actions that’s somewhat separated from culture or justifications of it. I do think we feel it in some way, shape or form. And so that to me it’s not about being virtuous. You know, you use the word rational. I’m not attaching some virtuosity to decisions, otherwise we’d have to be separate from our, I don’t know our capacity to feel as a human being. And do you know what I mean?
Derek Sivers
Yeah, it’s well put. I mean, you could have said the same thing about violence or people who wield power over others. You wonder how they sleep at night. And unfortunately, I think the answer is that almost everybody tells themselves they’re doing the right thing. And in fact my new book, “Useful Not True”. When I told people what it’s about, some people got worried. Because basically, what about bad people? What about bad people who find it useful to think that some other people somewhere else are subhuman? It’s not true, but they might find it useful to think that their military enemy deserves to die. So what about bad people? But these people always. Well, we people not those people. It’s us. We always justify our actions, and we always feel we did the right thing. Even if it’s just justified by saying, “Well, they did it first. They deserve ten times back what they did to us or whatever.” We justify it. So who knows? The greed may be justified. You know, “I worked hard. I deserve 1000 cans of baked beans. Stack them up. I’m gonna buy another house for all my beans. I worked hard, I deserve it.”
Mark
Thank you very much.
Derek Sivers
Where did that Jim Carrey voice come from? I don’t know.
Mark
Very suitable. But thank you very much for carrying on. The baked beans thing in honour of my attempts to carry it forward. We’re doing wonderful with this. The sense of “Useful Not True” in some ways “How to Live” kind of an expression of the process of, you know, challenging views or acknowledging that something that you may believe isn’t true. Letting go of ideas like was there a continuation even of just the process? Like, was there a sense of a connection in that sense, or was it just its own unique thing?
Derek Sivers
Absolutely but unspoken. So a composer may say, you know, like John Cage style. Okay, like everybody has heard of John Cage’s piece called 4’33 seconds, which is four minutes and 33 seconds of silence. And at some point, he had that idea, probably said, “Oh, my God, that would be badass.” Because let’s just pretend John Cage talks like that, and he officially did it and said, this is my newest composition, four minutes and 33 seconds of silence. And he gets an orchestra to sit there and the conductor goes like this. And then they have a timer where they sit for four minutes and 33 seconds of silence. So what does that piece mean? He probably has lots of ideas of what it means, and he’s probably thought of more ideas since then of what that piece means. And they’re all probably correct. And so, my book “How to Live” just came in like I was just literally just driving down the road and suddenly went, “Oh, I want to write a book called How to Live like this with the conflicting chapters. Oh my God, that would be so badass.” And I spent four years doing it. But yes, of course, it ties into the things we’re talking about here, about how there’s no one right answer, or there’s another way of looking at it.
Derek Sivers
There’s the 20 painted circles. How else could I play that note a hot molten ball dropped into water. What would that sound like? How else could I live? Which, of course, also implies that there’s not one right answer. There are other ways. Which then means what is true anyway. If somebody says,”Well, this is the right thing to do, this is what you should do. This is true.” I challenge that notion to, that’s my skepticism side to say, like anytime somebody says this is true, unless we’re talking about a physical reality, you know, this mug in my hands has a physical thing. If it’s not an observable, objective, concrete reality like that, well, then it’s just in our heads and there’s different ways to think about it. So I challenge anything people say is true unless it’s an observable by any creature or machine. So yeah then I look back at “How to Live” through that lens. I think yeah, I was showing in this unexplained artistic way that there are many ways to look at any given situation, and many ways to live, and many things we could call a good life. And none of them are necessarily true. It’s up to you to choose what you feel like doing.
Derek Sivers
And then the last page of the book, the subtitle of the book is “27 Conflicting Answers and One Weird conclusion.” So the weird conclusion is a picture of a duck and a bunny, which is supposed to be an optical illusion, where the question is, “Is this a duck or is it a bunny?” And it asks the viewer to decide, and this is actually a 100 years old optical illusion from the 1800s, I think. And the question that it goes with, yeah, “Is it a duck or a bunny?” Decide. Is it a duck or is it a bunny? And you’re supposed to answer the question or. And I thought that’s what most people do with life. They say, “Are we living for the present moment of happiness, or are we living for the future, to make the world a better place for our children? Which is it? Decide this or that?” And my mini little epiphany of seeing the duck or bunny illusion one day was to go, “Wait a minute, it’s both. That is a drawing of a duck and a bunny. It is simultaneously a duck and a bunny. And that’s what it is.” Problem solved. You don’t have to choose or it is and.
Derek Sivers
It is both. And I thought, “Ooh, like life that we don’t say. ‘Are we living for the present or for the future? Decide which is right.’” No and yes, we are living for the present and for the future. And we do nothing, and we do everything, and we follow pleasure and we follow pain. And so that was the message of the duck and bunny was to say that you don’t have to ask from these 27 chapters which one is right. All of them are right. And then it goes to a picture of an orchestra seating chart with 27 instruments in the orchestra to match the 27 chapters of the book. To say that you, as the composer and conductor, can play all of these instruments at whatever time you want, you can bring in some, you can let one take a solo. You can just follow hedonism for a time in your life, you could just go to a beach and think of nothing but your current pleasure, and then you have a different time in your life, which might even just be a week later, where you’re head down making money, doing things you don’t want to do to build a better future. And another time where you just focus entirely on what others want. And these are like the instruments in your orchestra. No one choice is right or wrong, but you get to play them how you want. You bring in some, you combine two of them. Maybe you combine all of them. Let one take a solo. You use time. So that was my weird conclusion to that but all of that was unspoken. I just left it as two images that I wanted the reader to piece together.
Mark
In “Useful Not True” with Stravinsky and the child asking what was the favorite instrument or the best instrument? And him saying time. Yeah.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Well that was his answer. But yeah, that was totally a hindsight explanation for the ending of “How to Live”. That was my little Easter egg tying together my books the way that Quentin Tarantino ties together his movies.
Mark
You know, all the things you’ve been pointing to, obviously just, you know, from looking at this poster at the very beginning, just seeing the the possibilities that it can be a circle could be this, it could be this, it could be that. Hearing this lady talk about the different emphasis of tone and the effect that has and once again, it can change this. It’s not just this way. It can be all of these ways and from moving from being a musician to running a company to writing books, to moving countries and even “How to Live”. Just what you’ve described there, just the sheer number of things or the possibilities or the contradictions, the yes, and the parrot like holding almost the paradox of it being everything at once or simultaneously more than one thing. And then just the what you’re pointing to, just in terms of the number of different possibilities of truth that could be in terms of how we see truth and knowing that they it may be useful but not true. And then the different perspectives we can hold for life. Just really curious, Derek, to get your answer to the question of what is a good life for you?
Derek Sivers
That thing you just described. I just felt like my life just flashed before my eyes. Thanks Mark, you summed me up well. Yeah, everything we’ve been talking about is the answer to your wonderful question.
Mark
Derek, thank you so much for your time for this. It’s amazing to hear someone speak about, I don’t know, life through this lens. And then also I don’t know the sheer level of like play and curiosity to almost what can sound quite you know, even the idea of giving money away is quite rational and it is quite rational. But even just going down through life and checking which option is best not just the first reaction, but the sheer level of joy and exploration and experimentation you bring to it. So it’s been a real thrill to speak with you today. And thank you very much for joining us on the “What is the Good Life podcast”.
Derek Sivers
Thanks, Mark. I really appreciate it.